The best game of 2016 just arrived on iPhone and iPad - it's an amazing game that everyone should play
You're on an island, completely alone, and it's a beautiful day.
There are structures all over the island that appear to be human-made. There are also puzzles everywhere, and they all employ the same solution mechanism: a single line, drawn by you, from a beginning point to an end point.
Sometimes the puzzles are all by themselves:
But often, they're in sets:
Everything I've just described about "The Witness," a brilliant game from acclaimed game developer Jonathan Blow and his team at Thekla, Inc., is factually accurate on paper. Factually accurate, yes, but not anywhere near as fascinating as the game itself.
The experience of actually playing "The Witness" is another matter entirely. Lucky you: The game just launched on iPhone and iPad for just $10.
What is it?
"The Witness" is played in first-person, meaning you are the person solving the puzzles, exploring the lonely island, wondering what in the world happened.
You walk around, unable to interact with anything beyond walking, looking, and activating a puzzle solution mechanism - tap on the starting point of any puzzle and a white dot appears that you can trace with your finger. The dot can be anchored to a starting point, enabling you to trace a line from a starting point to an end point.
Sounds weird and confusing? It isn't! This GIF should help:
That's the second puzzle in the game, and it activates a third puzzle that builds on the knowledge you've gained from solving the first and second puzzles.
As Justin McElroy at Polygon put it, "The Witness" builds a type of puzzle vocabulary for you. Once you've solved one puzzle, you're better equipped to solve subsequent puzzles. And once you solve one set of puzzles, you're better equipped to solve other sets. (And so on.)
So, wait - why am I solving puzzles?
The puzzles, while intellectually challenging and smart, aren't the only hook of "The Witness." They're devious and clever far more often than they are frustrating and confusing, yes, but for every "Aha!" moment of clarity that makes me feel brilliant solving a puzzle, there are many minutes of frustration where my wife and I angrily slam our heads against a seemingly-inscrutable puzzle.
What's so fascinating about "The Witness" is the island itself.
The buildings that were seemingly vacated suddenly, as though all living things disappeared in an instant:
The distinct areas of the island, which contain distinct sets of puzzles that often correlate directly with the puzzle you're solving:
The often totally bizarre, unexplained setpieces in the world:
Themes and colors and lines in the environment directly play into the puzzles in that area. No detail is left unattended, which makes everything - and I mean everything - feel deliberate. What's that side path? How do I get over there? The answers are waiting... if you can solve the puzzles and piece together the world.
As a result, "The Witness" feels tense, and foreboding, and even somehow serene, all at once.
There's a persistent sense that you're teetering on the edge of an enormous mystery, unable to grasp what's beyond the veil. It's everywhere. From the moment you start the game, in a dark hallway underneath a residential building, to the moment you realize this:
There are secrets - everywhere - and you quickly begin to spot them.
I'm being intentionally vague here so as not to spoil some of the game's most interesting revelations, but I will say this: if something seems "off" to you, it likely is. "The Witness" is a game about building up a vocabulary of understanding - through puzzle solutions, among other things - and then subverting that understanding.
And that's why you should play "The Witness." Might I also suggest buying and playing it immediately, before reading anything else about it?
Even in reading this review you're going into "The Witness" with more knowledge than you probably should, despite the fact that I've gone out of my way not to be too specific how the game works.
Relax: you'll be fine - the game is still a delight.
Simply put, "The Witness" is a unique, smart, gorgeous game that you shouldn't miss. At just $10 on iOS - a perfect platform for the game - it's an easy sell.
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